


A Winter Ever Since

by Hageny



Category: Bedannibal - Fandom
Genre: Crime, Mystery, Suspense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-30 01:12:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 10,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8513011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hageny/pseuds/Hageny
Summary: Jack's investigation into Dr. Lecter following Hannibal's departure to Florence reveals a surprising, dark secret, a secret which existed long before Florence.~October 7, 2017: I finally finished this story after a posting the first four chapters a year ago. I'm not sure how happy I am with it, structurally, but I knew if I didn't finish it now I never would. Please excuse the writing in some spots; I'm sure the chapters written this year will probably stand in stark contrast to those written last year. I like to think some growth happened in that year, but it is entirely possible I suck as hard this year as last year. Thank you to those who read this.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story features a lot of 'time jumps': Pre-Florence, Peri-Florence, and Post-Florence. Hopefully, this is not confusing, but if there are an parts that are unclear, I will be happy to clarify. Leave a comment, or reach out to me at hageny.tumblr.com

Pre-Florence:

“You are a man of mystery, Dr. Lecter.”

Hannibal smiled at Agent Crawford, letting the wine rest on his tongue before it slowly slipped down this throat as he smiled pleasantly. The sun was setting in the distance, and the sky was glowing a sort of ochre color, the edges of which were visible from Jack’s window.

“Are you insinuating that I have secrets yet to be discovered, Jack?”

Jack smiled broadly. “Dr. Lecter, international man of mystery.” He held his wine glass up in a sort of half toast, half salute, but to what Hannibal couldn’t really tell. _Either my charm or his own fascination with it,_ he thought silently.

“A sleuth such as yourself is never one to be put off by a little challenge” he said, setting his wine glass on the table in Jack’s office, the glass clinking delicately against the wood like a bell. “Seek and ye shall find.”

Jack smiled, drinking the last of his wine and setting his own glass down as well. He tugged gently at his vest, its snugness evidence of some small but continued weight gain over the years.

“What might I find if I did some digging, Dr. Lecter?” he asked good naturedly, folding his hands in his lap. He regarded Hannibal carefully, as he always did when he was face to face with Dr. Lecter. There was something in him Jack felt he could never really pin down. Some foreign quality, or maybe not so foreign; maybe familiar, carnal, untamed, like an Apex Predator, but he shrugged that thought off as soon as it came to him. The notion of Hannibal as predator to anything was ludicrous, and he guessed his late night TV binge was catching up to him.

Hannibal felt his chest tighten.

_-some secrets are better left buried._

Hannibal smiled calmly. “What if indeed, Jack” he said teasingly.

Jack was none the wiser to the constriction of the muscles in Hannibal’s throat and chest. He merely laughed again, wondering what the thing was about Dr. Lecter he couldn’t put his finger on.

He leaned back comfortably in his seat, feeling the wine slowly integrate itself into his bloodstream and lend him a pleasant buzz. “What’s the worst that I could dig up if I searched? Hell, what’s the worst that could happen even if I was curious enough to figure you out?” he asked playfully. He waved his hand. “You’re like something of a god, you could probably do no wrong.”

Hannibal smirked, and elegantly tilted his head at the thought. “Even gods have secrets” he said warmly.


	2. Chapter 2

Pre-Florence:

“Happy Birthday, Bedelia” Hannibal said softly, raising a glass to her.

She paused, regarding him carefully and narrowing her eyes before raising her glass to meet his. Their glasses met with that all too satisfying clink, a sound that seemed to announce the beginning of a momentous occasion, like gunfire at a racetrack. But this was only a birthday, a celebration in a room in a home where all other signs of life seemed to have been stilted, and the celebration was not even made obvious by the commercial signs of birthdays, no balloons, no gifts, and no other (living) people. Only herself and Hannibal, and at the far end of the room a window, beyond which sat a black sky and a blanket of snow that was continuously growing.

“You said there was something you wished to discuss, Hannibal. I did not accept your invitation to cook for me simply to celebrate my birthday” she said, placing a napkin in her lap and eyeing the meat before her. Flame roasted and drowned in a dark, syrupy sauce, with a sprig of dill to offset the heavy color of the meat.

Hannibal’s head was lowered slightly, and he chewed thoughtfully before swallowing and meeting her icy gaze with a burning, curious intensity. He always looked at her that way, like she was an enigma that defied classification and solution, a thought which made her swell, more than once, with a momentary buzz of happiness, only to be replaced by a sullen heaviness she never understood.

“Jack Crawford believes I am a man of mystery” he said simply, eyeing her still.

She waited for more, but he said nothing, so she inhaled deeply before she spoke. “And this concerns you?”

“Does it concern you?”

She sat silent for a few moments before she reached for her wine glass, drinking before she spoke. “Should it concern me?”

Hannibal pursed his lips contemplatively before setting his silverware down and clasping his hands together before his face. “The attack was so long ago, I would always like to think that what we buried with it died that night, and will stay dead” he said plainly, finally looking at her as the last words of his sentence rolled off his tongue.

She exhaled slowly as she spoke. “Man never searches when he feels there is nothing to look for. Don’t give Jack Crawford a reason to dig into your past, and he won’t find anything” she said.

“And you?” Hannibal asked.

Bedelia eyed him carefully, turning over various words in her head before finding a carefully selected response. “You weren’t the only one digging graves that night.” She stopped, solemnly looking at her wine glass, before looking back at him. “And we don’t talk about that” she said, her voice coming out ashen and rusty, as though she’d said those words before when in truth, it was merely that she was surprised that the subject that was never broached was touched on now.

For a moment it was as though light forgot to pass through the room, and all fell dark briefly. Bedelia realized that the conversation seemed to have brought a weird shadow along with it, and it hung over them now. Hannibal sighed thoughtfully, before leaning back and reaching once again for his silverware.

“No,” he said quietly, “no we don’t.”


	3. Chapter 3

Post-Florence, Bedelia’s home:

“I read your book, Dr. Du Maurier.”

The loveseat on which Jack Crawford sat was stiff, with a cushion that was entirely unrelenting. It was the sort of contraption which, no matter how long you sat upon it, would never accept any indentations, not like his leather La-Z-Boy, which had taken a beating over the years but had reduced its center to accept exactly Jack Crawford’s proportions, allowing him to fall asleep in front of the TV most nights, which was how the indentation got there. His eyes scanned Bedelia’s home briefly, taking in the stark walls (with no photographs), the angular tables (with no homey touches), and he wondered if there was some psychology behind the whole deal. Was her emotional distance present in the walls, a traumatic childhood on the tables? (He felt like Derrida asking these questions, _take the sum and deduce the meaning of the parts…_ ) It wasn’t really blank, necessarily. This was different, not like blankness, but like…depth. Like being swallowed, _like when I swam out too far when I was young and—_ …Never mind, never mind about depth now.

 She smiled at him, and for a moment Jack saw Hannibal as he looked at her. Something in the twitch of the mouth, maybe, or the eyes. Maybe something he’d rather not put a finger on.

“And?” she said finally. She was wearing a stiff, silk jacket whose shoulders jutted out and upward slightly, emphasizing her slender build and angular bone structure. She looked…coiled, almost. Like a cobra does when it sits in the grass for hours at a time to wait, to wait until something comes along paying a little less attention than it should.

He nodded and pursed his lips. “Interesting version of events” he said carefully. It sounded inoffensive enough. _Better to not upset the water._

“Truth is always subjective” she said, still smiling, her pillow-y, pink lips never parting to reveal teeth.

_She’s probably only smiled once in her life_ , he thought, thinking about her patient, her ‘John Doe’ who he hoped didn’t have a family. “Less so for some of us” he said, almost sounding snarky.

She tilted her head somewhat, but the smile still hadn’t faltered. “Are you accusing me of dishonesty, Agent Crawford?” she asked softly, pronouncing the ‘t’ so that the word came out ‘dishones-ty’.

He drummed his fingers on his legs, pursing his lips again, trying not to get ahead of himself. “I suspect you of it, I am almost certain of it, but I can’t prove it, which you made damn sure of. Not yet, anyway” he said, feeling confident that his plan would unfold just as he’d intended it to. This time, this time there would be no sympathetic talks about Hannibal Lecter, _and that victimized psychiatrist_. People really ate that up. Book at the top of the best seller list, 20 million copies sold the first week. _And people don’t even read books_ , Jack thought bitterly.

“What was the objective truth about what happened to Dr. Chilton?” she asked coolly.

Jack sat silent for a few moments, noticing for the first time that the side of the room where she sat was almost entirely dark. No artificial light, no open window, only the rays from the window behind him were stretching to do the job of illuminating her.

“He was injured in an incident involving the Great Red Dragon” he said finally. He realized, as he waited for her response, that the whole house was silent. No telephone ringing, no music playing, not even the sound of a dishwasher running somewhere in the distance. He remembered listening to Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence” when he was young, never understanding what the hell Paul Simon meant when he said, _No one dare / Disturb the sound of silence_. _Hello Darkness, my old friend_ , Jack thought. And what a friend indeed.

“And who has taken responsibility for the fact that he’ll never be able to… _face_ the world?” she asked, emphasizing the word, tilting her head back slightly so her eyes were looking down on him. ( _There’s that hidden riptide down in the water when you go too far_.)

Jack clenched his jaw, and thought maybe he should have listened to Will when he’d warned him not to visit Bedelia. It was something he could not place--she hadn’t done anything, after all—but she made him feel weird, like he used to when he was a kid and he and his friends used to dare each other to sneak into graveyards after dark, and that unsettling feeling would always bubble up in him—no matter how he promised to be brave—and he always ended up standing alone in the darkness, brimming over with regret.

_“You won’t get answers” Will said._

_“Won’t I?” Jack asked confidently._

_“No, you’ll get…something else.”_

_“Like what, Will?”_

_Will paused before replying. “The unsettling feeling that you’re not alone inside your head.”_

“What will you do when Dr. Lecter gets out of prison, Dr. Du Maurier?”

Bedelia smiled again. “I have always fared well where Hannibal is concerned” she said smoothly, and he felt as though saying so had taken her back a little bit, to a time long since gone. _Really took her back, a long way back, to a once upon a time._

“Participation usually makes surviving easier” he said coolly. He still thought that maybe he could take back the reins.


	4. Chapter 4

Pre-Florence:

“You seem somewhat…attached to Abigail Hobbs.”

Hannibal turned to look at Bedelia. “As I said, I never considered having a child before” he replied, tilting his head somewhat to the right, looking at her with what she felt were eyes that were thinking only of the most recent years of his life. He didn’t see Mischa, with her hand outstretched _(Anniba, Anniba!)_ , and he never looked too far into the distance, because there the person suit hadn’t yet been stitched. Bedelia knew that sometimes he forgot that she had been there, in those years before the veil had been drawn. After all, it wasn’t drawn by his hand alone.

Hannibal thought maybe there was a cruel comedy at play in her home. There was a silence that permeated both his spaces as well as hers, and it was one that was both contrived and comfortable, until they sat down together. Until they were face to face, pulling at skeletons and disregarding the elephant in the room. _Like astronauts, praying for noise in space only when headed for a black hole_ , he mused silently. _An iron fist in a velvet glove, indeed._ On the table to the right of him, the second hand on the clock came down with an iron thud, as though it amplified itself so it could chisel away at his comfort; here, in this room, where he’d spent so many years facing Bedelia, did time (that would usually have flown away) seem to suspend and still itself, especially in their most agonizing moments.

“Sometimes these things are not to be considered” Bedelia said finally. “There are certain things in life that just happen.”

“We can only do the best we can” he said quietly, looking downward momentarily. “You and I have always done the best we can, although we may have done things differently.”

Bedelia inhaled slowly and looked away momentarily, opening her mouth to speak, then closing it again, deciding to disregard his words. “You struggle when you feel things are not within your control” she said.

He looked at her pointedly. “Don’t we all?”

The look he flashed her was one to whose point she had to concede; she was no different. Hers was a life built entirely on the belief that, as Glanvill had once put it, _“Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will”._ She remained silent.

“Wasn’t that the struggle with Neal Frank?” He paused. “Something slipping out of control?”

Bedelia hesitated for a moment before speaking, inhaling slowly and feeling a familiar twinge of regret over the fact that she had to let Hannibal lead the conversation. Sometimes she bucked him and ignored what he said, unwilling to take the roads he traveled, thorny and familiar. “Some things are bigger than you and I, Hannibal” Bedelia said softly. “Neal Frank was not bigger than you and I.”

“But he died anyway” he said, looking at her somewhat solemnly. She looked back, and the regret washed away, but her resistance remained. Hannibal liked dancing with his demons too often, and Bedelia felt forced, at times, to join in, to take hold of something buried and bring it back out again, into the light, always looking worse for wear than it did before.

He looked away, out of the window of her home, at the snow that was still sitting like a heavy blanket outside of her window. Beyond the clouds, sunlight struggled to break through, but never quite made it, and there was a soft haze that spread itself over the day.  “But you’re not responsible for his death,” he said softly. “He was not bigger than you and I.”

“What about the rest of it?” she asked quietly. Suddenly she submitted to the dance, and took hold of that ghost so fiercely she felt she was sweeping it against its will out into the open. But this one, this one she deserved to know. This was the one that stayed buried, that held its place at the back of the closet and never saw the light.

“The rest of it is gone” he whispered. His gaze was fixed outside, on the scene beyond the window, at the world that was buried under the snow, struggling to break through.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Pre-Florence:

Bedelia sat quietly next to Hannibal on the airplane, her hand shuffling through her purse. She meant to grab her tube of lipstick, but her hand touched something else instead. She froze for a moment, and then reached in slowly, gingerly, and removed the item. She felt a stab in her chest as she inhaled slowly, thinking for the first time about how many years had passed, and saw the dividing line in her head, like a gruesome religious relic, the old Anno Domini standing firmly where it always had. Hannibal turned to regard her, and saw the delicate thing in her hand.

“You kept it” he said softly, leaning toward her slightly.

“This was as far as we got…and as real as it will ever be” she said slowly, tucking the item back into her purse.

Hannibal paused for a moment before turning away, shifting in his seat to diffuse the silence that hung in the air. The silence that he knew had been there since Neal Frank died years ago, but not really _because_ of him. It was a chapter that ended long ago, and a room in the memory palace that never opened.


	6. Chapter 6

Peri-Florence:

Jack rifled through the drawers in Hannibal’s office. He paused momentarily, looking up and around the room. Light streamed thinly through the blinds in his office, which were mostly shut. There was a stillness that made Jack feel like he wasn’t in the real world, that same bizarre quality that he noticed as he stood in Bedelia’s kitchen two years ago. Like time and life had been suspended, like whatever pervaded all other things in the world stopped here, and couldn’t quite make it through. The red leather chairs were still in the center of the room, where so much mental excavation had been enjoyed by Hannibal.

 _Where he dug for gold and left nothing but rubble_ , Jack thought.

He inhaled deeply and caught the smell of wood, books, and ash from Hannibal’s fireplace. He felt so out of place, and standing in Dr. Lecter’s office he almost felt that he was in the wrong, that this spot of leather books, therapy, and spotlessness could not possibly be home to the man who had become, overnight, the FBI’s most wanted. He was rifling aimlessly again when his fingers touched something at the back of the desk. He paused. _Could that—no, that’s not right…_ He stuck his hands in again and reached for the object, and tugged it gently from its hiding place. He set it carefully on Hannibal’s desk and stared at it, not knowing how he should process what he was looking at.

“Is that…?” Alana asked. She had come into the office while he was buried in thought, and he hadn’t heard her.

“Yeah…uh…” Jack said, then trailed off, touching the object again. He suddenly remembered a summer, when he was young, when a riptide had taken him out to sea. Out of nowhere, one moment he was bobbing, and the next there was nothing but the rush of water in his lungs, and no way to cry for help. He felt that again now, water in his lungs, and the knowledge that, when he finally broke the surface, the world would be different, like it was when he broke through as a boy.

He turned slowly to look at Alana. “Have we contacted Dr. Lecter’s psychiatrist?”

Alana furrowed her brow, and it took a moment for her to draw her eyes away from the object. “Uh, no, I don’t think--”

“We need to find her” he said firmly. He looked again at the desk. Yes, yes—this time there would be answers.

~~~~

Jack laid the phone back in its cradle and sucked his teeth, reaching for his whiskey. His TV was humming softly in the background, and the gameshow contestant jumped jubilantly into the air, waving his hands and grabbing hold of someone next to him to smother them with a hug. The host walked amiably to the contestant’s station, flashing the camera an All-American grin as he shook the contestant’s hand. But Jack registered almost none of this, barely even remembering that he had turned on the TV. All he heard in his head, like a record, was Dr. Du Maurier’s soft voice, and the click of her answering machine.

He set down his glass and reached into his pocket, pulling out a small photograph taken in the evidence room earlier that day. The object in the photograph was the one he’d pulled from Hannibal’s desk, captured underneath the glare of the FBI evidence room lights. That object spooked him. For a moment, he almost regretted not shoving that little thing back where he’d found it, so he wouldn’t have to dig for answers.

For the first time in his career, with murder cases, missing children, and wanted men behind him, Jack wasn’t sure he wanted the truth.


	7. Chapter 7

Pre-Florence:

The air in Bedelia’s house was cool and still as she and Hannibal exited the bathroom of her home. She held a hand towel gently in her hands, still absentmindedly rubbing at residue that was no longer there. They gazed silently into the living room for a few moments, at the broken glass that lay strewn like fallen stars across her carpet, and the body that had come to rest between what was her coffee table and the sofa, lying there like a dummy, looking almost unreal with its vacant stare projected at the ceiling.

Hannibal moved forward slightly, intending to reach for the body when he turned to look at Bedelia. He stared at her briefly, but she didn’t meet his gaze, her eyes locked desperately on Neal Frank, another shudder wracking her delicate figure. Hannibal felt something inside of him being tugged gently, and he laid a gentle hand around her waist.

“Come” he said softly, leading her slowly out of the room, absentmindedly fingering the delicate fabric of her camisole, which was soft and warm to the touch.

“I’m fine” she said softly, attempting to make what was hushed air come out as a hiss of resistance.

Hannibal grabbed her by both shoulders and spun her slowly so she could look at him. “I am helping you because you asked me to” he said softly, his dark eyes searching hers, looking for some awareness of what had transpired, some understanding of the moment of death.

“Were you helping me too when you referred him to me? Is that what that was, _help_?” she whispered, her voice shuddering.

Hannibal slowly rubbed his hands up and down her arms, and looked away momentarily. He inhaled slowly as he said, “You said I am wearing a person suit, Bedelia. You wanted to look behind the veil.”

Bedelia straightened suddenly and pulled away from him, her delicate figure suddenly seeming predatory. She narrowed her eyes and cocked her head slightly. “It’s not my job to save you” she said icily.

Hannibal felt a muscle in his lip twitch. “You weren’t always so hesitant, Dr. Du Maurier” he said coldly.

She smirked at him, but it wasn’t a satisfied turn of the lips; her mouth twitched upward in anger, a defensive reflex to keep the emotion from creeping further out of its hole, like a rat that—once free—would gnaw at anything it got its hands on. “You weren’t always so reckless” she whispered.

She turned and walked swiftly up the stairs, leaving Hannibal standing at the foot of her staircase. He looked slowly around her home, at the autumn air that chilled the greenery beyond her windows, and the light that drifted almost hesitantly into the room, like it was aware of its own futility as it lit a place that would not be bright for a very long time, and hadn’t been bright for a while. He turned his head when he saw a flash from the corner of his eye, and walked slowly toward the end table at the edge of the living room.

His hand curled gently around the perfume decanter that sat there, and he picked it up slowly, inhaling deeply as he took in the scent she always wore, remembering the moment he’d first smelled it, when he met her years ago and shook her hand, the very motion seeming to dispense the fragrance, bursting into the air and tingling his nostrils for the first time. He sucked in air angrily through his teeth, and rolled the bottle gently between his hands before flinging it violently onto the floor.


	8. Chapter 8

Peri-Florence:

Bedelia stopped suddenly, her eyes fixing on an object in a window as she and Hannibal passed by on their way back to the apartment. They were in the midst of their usual ritual, the end of the day beginning another domestic tradition, as she had made her way about thirty minutes earlier to the center of the city and met him in the same place as always, when he left for work. Like all of the habits that presented themselves suddenly when they’d landed in Europe, it was not one they ever acknowledged out loud, or even privately to themselves; it simply appeared as though it belonged. He felt a tug on his arm as she stopped, and spun on his heels to see what had caused her to come to a sudden halt.

“Is everything alright, Bedelia?” he asked, glancing curiously at her, feeling the gentle pressure of her delicate hand on his leather jacket sleeve. He turned his eyes to the window, to see what had caught her attention.

There, underneath delicate yellow light, seated atop of a small pedestal that was covered in a thick satin sheet, was a bottle of perfume, the same brand she always wore, in the same packaging. A delicate string of lights inside the window illuminated it further, and it felt so inviting, suddenly, like a room in a home that holds only positive feeling, unmarred by whatever negativity may have passed through.

Hannibal looked back at Bedelia, and touched her waist as he stepped to the other side of her, reaching for the door.

“Do you want it gift-wrapped?” he asked simply, cocking his head slightly, and holding the door for her.

“Please” she said quietly, stepping inside and thinking of the bottle she had at home, the same one she’d left for Hannibal before they escaped to Florence. It was almost empty, and she’d needed a new one.


	9. Chapter 9

Post-Florence:

“You believe you are an observer, Agent Crawford?”

Jack straightened in his chair, and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his legs. He pursed his lips and smiled at her as he studied her. “Yes” he said finally.

Bedelia inhaled slowly, and a smile—one he could not really define—passed over her face. “We have both done what it took to survive” she said, and he sensed a phony vulnerability creeping in her tone as she spoke.

Jack leaned back and stared at his hands briefly, before meeting her eyes again. “What you did wasn’t about survival” he said coolly.

She straightened, and Jack sensed something shift in her. It was like the mask of vulnerability had wiped itself away and revealed the iron nerve beneath it. “You seem confident that what you have done was based on survival.”

Jack tightened his lips, the corners of his mouth twisting into an almost angry grimace. He fought to keep his composure, to keep his poker face in the face of Bedelia, who was eyeing him like a lab specimen, like a toy she was playing with. _Fuck her_ , he thought angrily as he glared back at her.

“Would you tell that to Dr. Chilton? To Will Graham?” she asked softly, turning her head to look out the window as she spoke. She sighed, a phony, heavy sigh that escaped her lips in a hiss. “Dr. Chilton, stripped from head to foot by the Red Dragon, and Will Graham, in the clutches of the Devil himself.” She looked back at Jack and the shadows that danced along the walls fell once again along her face as she stared thoughtfully at him. “These Agents of the Cross who worked so faithfully to assist you in reaching a common goal, only to be felled by their ambitions. And you, the lone survivor.” She straightened a touch and eyed him closely as she said, “Do you know what position the leader takes in a pack of wolves?”

Jack said nothing, staring angrily at her still as her lips curled into a smirk.

“The leader of the pack remains at the back, Agent Crawford, to watch over the weaker members. It seems to me that perhaps you were at the front. You saw danger, yet you danced around it, because someone else was always willing to dance for you. Will Graham certainly did a lot of dancing, didn’t he?”

Jack leaned forward angrily and stared at her intently, clasping his hands together tightly in anger. “Will Graham danced because Hannibal left him no choice” he snapped.

“Will Graham chose,” Bedelia said slowly, “there is always choice. You chose too, remember?”


	10. Chapter 10

Peri-Florence:

Alana sat quietly in her home, eyes glued to the TV set in her living room as the reporter drummed out more information, some of it catching Alana’s ears, some of it missing her entirely. Her cat was seated on the carpet in front of the TV, eyeing her carefully, at times letting out an insistent purring sound and wriggling onto its back to get Alana’s attention. The air outside was cool and autumnal, with the setting of the sun having left things even chillier than they were during the day, and Alana had her legs curled beneath her on the chair and a blanket stretched over her lap to fight the chill. Regardless, some of it still seemed to seep through.

She shook herself from her daze and returned her eyes to her laptop, which was sitting on her lap and glowering brightly at her in the dimly lit living room. She scrolled through the article she’d found in an old newspaper, one on a young, aptly named, Neal Frank.

With the disappearance of Dr. Du Maurier having coincided with Hannibal’s own vanishing, Jack had asked Alana to look more into the patient on whose death Jack had granted Bedelia immunity. Jack knew, logically (or maybe he knew, but resisted the knowledge) that legally he had spared Bedelia a trial and any legal repercussions with regard to her patient’s death in exchange for her cooperation into their investigation into Hannibal Lecter. However, in Jack’s mind, she hadn’t exactly held up her end of the deal when she disappeared with Lecter, and so he fired up a cold trail and wanted to see what could possibly be dug up about the man, whose name they’d finally figured out. He wasn’t sure what good it would or could do—if any—but he was angry, as he watched his only link to Dr. Lecter slip right through his fingers.

Alana looked carefully at the black and white photograph in the newspaper. Dr. Frank stared plainly up at Alana, face rather stony and straightforward looking. He was young, 35 at the time of publication, and Alana mused at his link to the medical community, and made a mental note of it. She scrolled a bit more. Nothing terribly noteworthy. He was not a medical doctor of the acclaim and prestige which Hannibal and Bedelia were familiar with; he ran a small, private practice of his own. Nothing complex; he considered himself a family doctor, but his gentle demeanor and efficiency had earned him a good reputation among the residents of Baltimore--both lower and upper crust—and he’d done well for someone not long graduated from medical school.

A quick Google search had informed Alana that his practice was, ironically enough, not far from Dr. Lecter’s office. Two and a half blocks, to be more precise, with delis and clothing stores being the majority of the businesses that separated the two.

 _Must’ve been how he ended up under Hannibal’s care_ , she thought to herself, looking again at his photograph. She closed the laptop and laid it aside. Something about his death troubled her. What she did know of Hannibal—or rather, what’d she learned post-disappearance—revealed that his victims were typically ne’er-do-wells (at least, by Hannibal’s standards), or at least people whom Hannibal had perceived to have wronged him in some way. Given the breadth of his patient list—which was more than substantial—a random killing of one of his patient’s would’ve certainly produced other victims. Hannibal’s other patients were fine, or alive at least, firstly; secondly, Hannibal may be able to lay claim to a certain level of recklessness regarding his proclivities, but a random offing of his own patients was too much, even by his standards. Too easy to catch, too easy a trail to follow.

A nagging feeling in Alana’s chest remained as she scooped up her cat, shut off the TV set, and made her way up the stairs and into bed, stopping briefly in the bathroom to cleanse her face before she slipped under the covers. She stared at the ceiling and a thought crystalized in her mind as she hoped sleep would soon arrive: _He must’ve done something. He must’ve done something to upset Hannibal. That’s why he died._

She fell asleep before she could ask another, pertinent question: Why did Bedelia kill him?


	11. Chapter 11

Pre-Florence:

“Do you regret what happened, Hannibal?” Bedelia asked softly, sitting placidly in her chair at the other side of the table, the remnants of her birthday dinner still sitting between them. The snow was coming down even heavier now, the clock on the wall reading 8:45 pm. The smell of dinner lingered—not unpleasantly—but it was slowly being overpowered by the scent of wine that drifted into the air.

Hannibal inhaled slowly, never breaking his gaze as he looked her over carefully, biting the inside of his lip and looking out of the window again.

“Your question suggests you believe I should have regrets, Bedelia” he said plainly, turning to look at her once again.

She eyed him carefully and inhaled as well, trying to figure out how to dance this round with him, behind the veil. “Your decision to refer Neal Frank to me was unfair at best…and permanently damaging at worst” she said, her voice affecting its usual apathetic cast.

Hannibal narrowed his eyes and took a sip of his wine. “You blame me for your early retirement?” he asked, feeling a slight displeasure well up in his chest.

Bedelia smiled slowly, tilting her head to the side. “I wouldn’t be retired if you hadn’t referred him to me” she said in a calm, measured voice.

Hannibal pursed his lips in displeasure and looked down at the table, and then back at her. “Where do you think we would be, without Neal Frank?” he asked quietly, running a strong hand over the napkin that sat on the table beside his plate, folded into a geometric shape his hands created but his head couldn’t make sense of.

A pause, as Bedelia shifted slightly, looking at her lap briefly as she spoke. “Without Neal Frank, as in, without the shadow of his death looming over us?” She paused, pursing her lips as the anger and sadness rose in her. “Or, without Neal Frank, as in, without his presence entirely?”

“The latter” Hannibal said softly.

Bedelia leaned back against her chair, a shadow falling across her as she did so. “Where would you be, Hannibal?”

Hannibal shifted in his chair and turned her question over thoughtfully, looking at the cotton table cloth before his eyes slowly turned toward her again.

“With you” he answered simply.


	12. Chapter 12

Post-Florence:

“So Neal Frank was a part of the medical community as well?” Jack asked, sitting in the comfortable living room of Alana and Margot’s home.

The information Alana had dug up more than three years prior lay scattered across the table in front of him. They hadn’t meant to forget it. They, really, hadn’t forgotten it at all, but they’d all been changed, changed by Lecter, and the damage his presence had caused on their psyche’s had taken such a long time to heal. If Alana was honest with herself, she never did heal; she knew none of them had, as she watched Jack fiddle with the space where his wedding band once sat. Might’ve kept it, given that he never dated. That could be Hannibal’s fault, too.

“Yes,” she said, crossing her legs beneath the table, “he ran a rather simple, but successful medical practice not far from Lecter’s. Nothing fancy, but he had a good reputation and a solid list of well to do client’s, given his location and quality of work.”

“Anything peculiar?” Jack asked, turning over an article on Neal Frank and eyeing a small photograph of him.

“No, nothing noteworthy whatsoever. He was single, no ex-wives, no children, simple daily life, didn’t leave any signs of peculiar interests or habits. The only thing worth noting is the depression and insomnia Hannibal makes note of in his file on Dr. Frank, which is how he ended up under his care.”

Jack shifted slightly in his chair—a little too firm for his tastes, rather bourgeois as per the Verger family’s tastes—and looked at Alana. “So we have to consider that maybe Hannibal’s supply of ‘the rude’ had run dry, and he was looking into his patient list for anyone he felt didn’t deserve to see another day” Jack said simply.

Alana pressed her lips together and inhaled thoughtfully, pausing before saying, “I don’t think so” she said slowly, making sure not to sound impertinent or overly sure of herself.

Jack cocked an eyebrow. “You have a theory?”

Alana leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table. “Jack, what we know about Neal Frank is that he was Hannibal’s patient to begin with, and then he was Dr. Du Maurier’s patient. We also know that Hannibal didn’t kill Neal Frank. He may have set the wheels in motion, but Dr. Du Maurier is the one who pulled the trigger, so to speak.”

“Or the tongue” Jack said, his voice colored with an edge of disgust.

Alana leaned forward further. “Why did Dr. Du Maurier kill him? Why _not_ Hannibal?”

Jack looked at her thoughtfully from across the table. He remembered Alana as she was the day she joined his team, all long brown hair and doe eyes, hopefulness and naivety swimming in her that Jack knew experience would snuff out. He hadn’t expected experience would do such a bang up job. She was a shadow of her former self. Or maybe her former self was the shadow of the woman in front of him now, all red lipped and dark haired iciness. Or maybe they were both just shadows, and Dr. Lecter’s hands were casting them, trained in front of a big spotlight.

“You think this has something to do with what I found in his desk?” Jack asked, slowly piecing together her train of thought.

Alana nodded, and for a moment he saw her younger self again, bent over his desk and chasing a point. “I think there’s a chance.”

Jack smiled. “Be stupid not to follow your hunch.”

She smiled, and felt a familiar swell. If Jack had given her anything, he gave her the confidence to follow her intuition by trusting it himself.


	13. Chapter 13

Post-Florence: 

Choose. You chose. He chose.

Of all the words Dr. Du Maurier could’ve thrown at Jack, the word ‘choose’ was the one that irked him most. And she knew it. He knew she knew it, as she regarded him coldly, sitting across from him as serenely as one does watching a game, or a movie. And maybe to her that’s what it was anyway, he figured. To her and Hannibal, it was always a game, always a matter of supporting players moving behind the scenes of their lives. Frequent cast changes, frequent scenery changes, same lead actors. Jack bit his lip in anger, trying desperately to swallow the urge to strike her. He slipped his hand into his jacket pocket and produced a newspaper clipping, which he extended toward her.

She paused curiously, then took it slowly. If she had an inkling of why he was here now, or what information he was intending to get from her, her face did not betray any sign of unease, which pissed him even more. She just sat there, completely still and staring, before turning her eyes back to him and saying, “This is Neal Frank as I remember him.”

He pursed his lips and rested his forearms on his knees. “Neal Frank as he was before you killed him.”

Bedelia smiled coyly. “The incident against which you granted me immunity, Agent Crawford, yes.”

“You can call it what it is, Doctor” he said angrily.

She said nothing for a moment, and cocked her head to the side. “Are you insinuating I didn’t tell you the truth before? I told you beyond a certain point it was murder” she said breezily.

“And what point was that, exactly?” he snapped angrily. “What point was there besides cold-blooded murder?”

Bedelia remained still and smiling, feeling a keen sense of amusement at the desperation he displayed as he aimed deftly for the truth. He knew the truth, she knew. But she couldn’t help enjoying the way he made his way, clumsily, toward its ‘discovery’, as if she didn’t know. Truthfully, she’d known since she opened the door and invited him in nearly an hour ago.

She glanced slowly at her watch and smiled back at Jack again. “Your session is almost up” she said quietly.


	14. Chapter 14

Peri-Florence:

Bedelia ran her fingers under the faucet of the copper bathtub as Hannibal came up behind her, leaning against the doorframe as he usually did as she was preparing to bathe herself. She turned her head and saw him out of the corner of her eye taking a sip from his wine glass, watching her carefully as he always did.

“You thought of it again” she said quietly, running her fingers still under the tap, enjoying the warmth of the water as it splashed over her delicate fingers.

“You think of it always” he replied softly.

Bedelia smiled to herself as she heard him avoid her statement. “Thank you for the perfume.”

Hannibal sniffed and adjusted his shirt sleeve. “No thanks is necessary. One new bottle every year, per our tradition.”

Bedelia reached a hand up and shut off the water, turning around to face him, which caught him somewhat off guard. “Never breaking tradition; just that single bottle years ago.” She looked at him carefully. “I still smell it faintly in my carpet.”

Hannibal looked away briefly and then back at her. “We have no other traditions” he said simply. “Must keep one alive.”

Sadness flitted across her face before she turned her back to him again and pulled a hand through the water, before reaching up and discarding the straps of her nightgown and letting the front slide off of her skin and into her lap. “We have the veil…and one shadow” she nearly whispered.

Hannibal stared at her thoughtfully before turning away and disappearing into the apartment.


	15. Chapter 15

Post-Florence:

A knock at the door and Jack was on his feet before remembering he was in Bedelia’s home, stopping short as he turned to look at her.

“Please,” she said, a bemused smile on her face as she waved a delicate hand at him, “I wasn’t expecting company.”

He sniffed in annoyance and walked toward the door, opening it confidently and letting Alana inside. Bedelia noted silently that Alana had a manila folder stuffed beneath her arm. She had expected to see it, and felt satisfied when it was indeed there, poking out from under the sleeve of her jacket.

Alana stepped slowly into Bedelia’s living room. It was geometric and elegant, yet it felt deep, like there were more than a few steps her feet had taken as she descended onto the carpeted floor. She felt like she was still walking downward as she met Bedelia’s penetrating gaze.

Bedelia sat still in her chair, eyeing Alana carefully and smiling still. The sun beyond the window had started to descend behind the horizon, and the shadow it had cast continuously on her face deepened, making her expression almost hard to see.

“This is Detective Alana Bloom; she worked alongside Will Graham under my supervision” Jack Crawford said, stepping beside Alana, feeling the sudden need to protect her.

Bedelia smirked wryly. “Some supervision” she said softly. She turned her gaze from Jack’s hot, angry face to Alana’s, the expression of which Bedelia knew was hard to muster as she looked her over. It looked cold and critical almost as well as a teenager does when it feels heat under its collar.

“Another one changed by Dr. Lecter” she said softly, nodding toward the seat Jack had placed beside his after letting her inside.

Alana grimaced and sat down slowly. She wasn’t sure what she had expected Dr. Du Maurier to look like. She’d realized, upon seeing her, that this was her first face-to-face encounter with Bedelia. For all the times she’d heard both Jack and Will mention her name, she couldn’t say she’d ever come face to face with her, until now, although curiosity had certainly prodded her more than once. Much as she hated it, she couldn’t deny that Bedelia was beautiful, beautiful in the same way Hannibal was. Usually her features would’ve given a sense of pleasant serenity, but to Alana they looked unearthly.

Bedelia shifted slightly, sensing a few things about Alana, the first being her appreciation for her beauty, the second being what she noted was a keen appreciation for women equal to that of her appreciation for men. Bedelia knew this is what enabled Hannibal to take advantage of Alana so easily, and she thought his description of her was not far off. She crossed her legs slowly and purposefully stuck a pale, slender limb out just a touch farther than before, watching Alana’s eyes flit—if only for a moment—onto her legs.

“You were involved with Dr. Lecter” Bedelia said simply, watching Alana’s face freeze momentarily.

“We’re not here to discuss past romantic involvement” Jack said firmly, leaning forward a touch in his seat.

Bedelia’s eyes never left Alana’s face as she said, “He mentioned you, once. A gentle touch is often the first unraveling.”

Alana inhaled angrily and looked down at the manila envelope, opening it hastily. “You remember being granted immunity by Agent Crawford in the death of your patient, Neal Frank” she said as smoothly as she could.

“My involvement in his unfortunate, untimely demise, yes” Bedelia answered.

Alana set the folder down and stared intently into Bedelia’s eyes. “When Agent Crawford granted you immunity, he granted you immunity against persecution on the charge of involuntary manslaughter.”

Bedelia smiled coolly in response.

Alana pursed her lips confidently as she said, “With what we’ve dug up, we can try you on charges of premeditated murder, Dr. Du Maurier. The immunity we granted you would not protect you from a trial, new charges, separate accusations.”

“So you’ve found the body?” Bedelia asked quietly. She watched both Jack and Alana’s faces fall just a fraction, just enough to tell her they hadn’t. “Writ of habeas corpus. It is hard to charge someone with premeditated murder without physical evidence of the crime you suppose they’ve committed.”

“We know you’ve committed” Jack said angrily.

Bedelia cocked her head to the side in feigned innocence. “I was coerced” she said quietly.

Patience had worn thin in Alana and she flipped the folder around and extended the papers to Bedelia. “Newspaper clippings, patient records of Hannibal’s—a complete log of all visits by Neal Frank—and one final interesting piece I think you should see” Alana said as she dug her hand inside her coat pocket as Bedelia flipped quietly through the manila folder.

What she produced was the only thing she could possibly have produced that could have stunned Bedelia Du Maurier. “We found this in Hannibal’s desk drawer, after both of you fled to Florence. I only regret it’s taken this long to get to this point” Alana said sharply.

Tears welled into Bedelia’s eyes as she stared at the object in Alana’s hand. Alana was surprised when Bedelia extended a shaky hand and took it from her palm.

A baby bootie. Just one. One small blue shoe resting atop Bedelia’s shaking palm. She slowly closed her fingers around it and stroked the soft fabric.

“Look familiar?” Jack asked, feeling a stab of sympathy, in spite of himself. He had to admit he hadn’t expected to see any emotion in Bedelia’s face, nor had Alana, who felt the same stab in her seat beside him. She could relate, as a mother.

Jack stood and walked to the other end of the room, staring out of the window momentarily before turning back to Bedelia, whose eyes were still locked on the small shoe in her hand. “We know you went to see Dr. Neal Frank some ten years ago, while suffering from a common cold. Nothing too terrible, nothing that might’ve troubled anyone else.”

Alana leaned back in her chair and said, “But you were pregnant at the time. Receipts we dug up confirmed that just a few weeks prior you had purchased a pregnancy test. A few other receipts confirmed the purchase of a pair of baby shoes, a single outfit, and a baby rattle.”

“We found the baby rattle in your apartment in Florence” Jack said. “We didn’t have the evidence to do anything with it at the time, so we put it away for when we finally had the opportunity to compile everything.”

“Three years to recover from your wounds” Bedelia said icily, turning her face toward Jack, and then to Alana, the remnants of the tear that had rolled down her cheek still catching the light.

Alana shifted uncomfortably, and continued. “You went to see Doctor Neal Frank for some prescription medication to treat your cold.”

“But he was young, and a new doctor, and he accidentally gave you too much. Too high a dose, which you would’ve caught had the bottle been labeled correctly.” Jack paused, regarding Bedelia carefully. “Cured the cold, aborted the baby.”

“We have record of one single hospital visit for treatment post-abortion. The doctors ascertained that the baby had already died before you even reached the hospital, which you knew. It was the bleeding that forced you to go” Alana said softly, having a momentary flash of the horror Margot felt when recalling the removal of her own uterus.

Jack shifted slightly where he was standing and cleared his throat, causing Bedelia to turn toward him. “I guess it was some stroke of luck when he visited Hannibal for help with his depression and insomnia. He didn’t know Dr. Lecter, and by the time Lecter referred him to you he had forgotten ever seeing you.”

“That’s why you killed him” Alana said softly.

A smirk danced across Bedelia’s face, and she felt a smugness settle in her chest. Credit to the FBI. She’d have to give them that for apparently having so little to do that they’d found out the truth about Neal Frank. She was surprised, and yet, not really. She knew as she looked at Alana’s face, and then at Jack’s face, that this must be the greatest accomplishment of their long, sad, sorry careers. All that time, all that education, all that experience, culminating in a pinnacle here in her living room as they wrangled her in for her involvement in the death of someone who’d merely had it coming.

Bedelia stood calmly and looked over her shoulder as she cleared her throat. A figure emerged from the shadows and both Alana and Jack looked up in shock.

“Let’s talk privately” Bedelia said calmly, nodding toward the coats inside which Alana and Jack had hidden the wiretap devices she’d known they were wearing since they entered her home. “Please” she added sweetly.


	16. Chapter 16

Pre-Florence:

“You are troubled by depression and insomnia?” Hannibal asked softly as he sat down, the leather chair creasing just enough to accept his weight, which Neal was sure was mostly muscle.

Neal Frank nodded quickly, rubbing his hands together somewhat nervously. “Family history; not helped by my work I’m sure.”

“Ours is a demanding community” Hannibal said smoothly, crossing his legs.

Neal nodded, noting silently how beautifully tailored Dr. Lecter’s suit was. It looked like a fortune, and it certainly wore that way. The clock on the wall ticked audibly, noticeable in the otherwise silent office, yet Neal felt as though he could and could not hear it at the same time. There was sound, and yet no sound.

“Any personal problems that could be exacerbating your conditions?” Hannibal asked.

Neal shook his head, trying to keep his mind on the session. “No, no kids, no wife. Not really connected to my family. Sort of a lone wolf, I guess.”

“That can make things difficult” Hannibal said. _And easier_ , he thought to himself.

Neal’s eyes flitted over to Hannibal’s desk momentarily, catching sight of the perfume bottle that sat adjacent to the small stack of paperwork Hannibal had been working through when Neal entered his office. “You have a family?” he asked, trying to be conversational. His former therapist during his college days had told him it was something to work on. _“Just give it the ol’ college try, sport!_ ” he’d said to a then 21 year old Neal. Neal supposed chatting up an elegant Lithuanian doctor was as close to the ‘college try’ as he could get.

Hannibal pressed his lips together momentarily and looked at his hands as he said, “A baby who died in utero.”

Neal drew back somewhat. “Oh, I’m, I’m sorry--” he stammered, his eyes feasting on the first real display of emotion that had crossed Hannibal’s face since the beginning of their session, his cold, stately face creasing just enough to communicate a sense of sorrow that still lingered.

Hannibal straightened in his chair and shook his head briefly. “A reckless oversight in the medical community” he said softly.

“Can certainly be corrected” Neal offered hopefully.

Hannibal smiled for the first time since Neal Frank had entered his office. The look on his face made Neal feel as though he’d announced to Hannibal he’d won the lottery, or found the cure for death, and he was glad for it.

“Yes, it can” Hannibal replied, clenching his hands together tightly. Beyond the window at the end of his office, snow began to fall.


	17. Chapter 17

Post-Florence:

Will Graham swallowed heavily as he aimed the revolver at both Jack and Alana. He felt weightless. He remembered his last conversation with Hannibal— _“your wife, your child, they all belong to me”_ —as his hand shook. All the years of training, slinging himself through snow, mud, forests, rivers as he chased after criminals, hours pouring over dead bodies, paperwork, talks with Jack, talks with Alana—all of it, and nothing. Nothing but the sound of Hannibal’s voice whirring in his brain, and his hand shaking as he knew he hadn’t belonged to himself since he met Lecter. That everything was borrowed time. That all of them had borrowed all their time, only to end up here this way.

“I’m sorry” he whispered, his voice little more than a hoarse rush of air as it left his throat. He shook his head and bit his lip, trying to keep his tears at bay.

Jack looked slowly at Bedelia. Her lips twisted into a smirk and she gestured for them to sit down and remove their devices. Slowly, he felt himself sink onto the chair, hearing Alana pull her device free from her coat as his hands fumbled with his. Bedelia reached forward and collected both the devices from their stiff, outstretched hands before once again finding her place in the shadows, seating herself at the opposite end of the living room.

“What is this?” Jack hissed. He wanted to be angry, yet he felt hopeful as he looked in Will Graham’s eyes. He saw the young man he’d hired years ago, big trusting, bruised eyes that promised him then and now he wouldn’t get hurt.

“Action,” Bedelia said, sighing heavily, “and consequence. All of our life experiences amount to this, certainly the sum of yours as well as Will Graham’s.”

“What is going on here?” Alana asked firmly.

“Hannibal?” Jack said, looking at Will curiously, trying to figure how Hannibal—still incarcerated as of this morning in his cell—could have reached Will Graham.

“So soon to forget the Great Red Dragon?” Bedelia asked quietly from her seat.

Jack and Alana froze in their seats, eyeing Bedelia curiously as she smiled. “Kill or be killed, isn’t that so Will? At least, for your family” Bedelia said quietly, turning her eyes toward him.

The hand clutching the gun shook almost violently, and Will managed to sputter out, “My family, Jack. I have to.”

The pieces fell together almost startlingly fast for Jack. He had flashes--violent, strobe-like memories--of all the moments preceding this one in which he'd felt like a pawn in a game, all the moments during which he'd convinced himself he was closer to defeating Hannibal than he'd ever been, only to remain the fool in the end. He looked at Will and thought that no one had been forced to suffer more than he had, and Jack could finally admit to himself a truth he'd always managed to elude--that he was responsible for most of Will's suffering. Will had come upon Dr. Lecter by force of Jack's determination that he not end up bruised like Jack knew he would. He wondered who Will might be now--right here, right now--if Jack hadn't given him to the devil years ago. 

Bedelia cocked an eyebrow as she looked down at the recording devices sitting in her lap and said, “Or, you can all leave now, and no one will be harmed. The evidence will remain with me, but all three of you will be able to leave in one piece, and Will Graham’s family will remain as he left them: alive.”

Alana and Jack stared at Bedelia in shock, their bodies too stiff with fear and disbelief to move, as she turned toward Will and said, “I told you I preferred to be the last.”

Alana turned to Jack and opened her mouth, but Jack silenced her immediately. She bit her lip and looked at Will hopelessly. She knew. 

Ten minutes later the door to Bedelia’s home swung open and Alana, Jack, and Will emerged. The SWAT teams they’d left outside rushed toward them in confusion, but Jack ordered them to stand down, and to vacate Bedelia’s residence immediately.

From the comfort of her home, Bedelia lifted the phone off of the cradle and placed a call to Hannibal, who then instructed the Great Red Dragon to leave Will Graham’s family intact.

"Able to preserve the peace, Bedelia?" he asked softly.

She gazed listlessly out of her living room window as she said in a near whisper, "I restored it. Peace is the only thing we have, Hannibal."

"It's as real as he will ever be" he said solemnly.

Bedelia knew he was crying as she stared at the baby bootie in her hand. "How long had you intended to keep this?" she whispered.

Hannibal shifted in his cell and gripped the phone so tightly his knuckles turned white. "I thought one day we might try again." A pause. "You kept the baby rattle."

A tear slid down Bedelia's cheek. "I thought one day we would try again too" she said softly. 

A few moments later Bedelia heard the clink of the phone as she laid it softly in its cradle. She saw the flash of blue lights dotting the roads behind her house as the police retreated. The look on Will Graham's face--one of hopeless desperation--was one she would not soon forget. The sight of it tasted like candy, like long-awaited thirst satiated after ages of drought. She thought of his trembling wife, no doubt all tears and dried snot as she hugged her son close, clinging desperately to him as she waited for Will to return home, shaking violently in the vestiges of the hold of the Great Red Dragon, knowing she'd survived  _this time_. Knowing there might be a  _next time_. 

In essence, it didn't matter. Bedelia could kill that boy again and again and still Molly would always be a mother. She was a mother by way of simple biology: her uterus had carried and then contracted to bring into the world a person who--dead or alive--would always be her son. Any next step, any next time, any other way--she would be a mother, she would be a mother even if the Great Red Dragon sent her son's body to her piece by piece. 

The science to which Bedelia had so wholly devoted herself had failed her, and Hannibal: it rendered their son little more than a Rorschach test blotted between her thighs, evidence of a deep-seeded desire which had come to fruition if only for a short time, to then say goodbye. Bedelia knew now--as thoughts of Will's son faded, replaced by memories of her only glimpse of her child as he'd spilled from her uterus--that nothing she ever took from Will would make her a mother. 

The peace that she and Hannibal preserved had gone rotten. 

The teacup was never really whole.


	18. Chapter 18

Pre-Florence:

The scent of dandelion floated up from the bath as water spilled over Bedelia again and again as she inhaled slowly, the scent filling her lungs gently as the splashing continued rhythmically in time with Hannibal's hands as they worked their way through her hair. Her hands floated beneath the water to her stomach, to the gentle curve that had claimed its place now in her third month, protruding gently yet noticeably, at least to her and Hannibal. 

"This should help with your cold" he said quietly, caressing her shoulders gently as he added some chamomile oil to the bathwater. "Inhale deeply; the chamomile should ease your symptoms if used consecutively over the course of the next few days."

"I might need to see a doctor" she replied sullenly, silently bemoaning the fact that her sickness hadn't managed to clear on its own. 

"No, Bedelia" Hannibal said firmly.

"Suffering won't help the baby" she retorted, her head still pounding even after a near thirty minute soak. 

Hannibal's lip tensed with displeasure and he offered nothing but silence in reply, stopping momentarily to enjoy the sight of the swell of her stomach beneath the water, feeling a sudden, first stab of fatherly pride as he recalled the moment when Bedelia had told him quietly over dinner a few hours earlier that they were having a boy.

"What do you want to name him?" he asked, dipping his hands beneath the water again.

Bedelia was silent for a few moments before she spoke. "I don't know." She glanced down again at the small protrusion as her mind still tried to adjust to the knowledge that she would soon be a mother. "It is perhaps smarter to wait until he is born to decide."

Bedelia felt secure with this decision as Hannibal's gentle splashing continued. She knew there were months left during which she could narrow her still-lengthy list of names to a select few favorites, and that the defining moment when her son was placed in her arms would almost allow him to decide his own name, as he looked up at her for the first time. 

It wasn't as though the lack of a name now would ever be something to regret. 

 

_~Fini~_


End file.
